A Duke by Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes Page 0,28
the day, I was tired and satisfied, pleased with my efforts, usually, or confident that tomorrow would be better.”
Elgin blew the foam off his ale, the flecks spattering the worn planks of the servants’ hall floor. “Now we want nothing so much as to stay warm and comfy under our quilts until we have to piss so badly we venture forth. At least winter’s behind us.”
In Yorkshire that was never reliably the case. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Elf.”
Treegum and Elgin had been trading that confession for the last few years. Mrs. Beaseley would likely echo the sentiment, had she not already sought her bed. Thatcher, the butler, had fallen asleep in his rocking chair, as had become his habit of an evening.
“We will man our posts as long as need be,” Elf said. “We promised Her Grace.”
“Her Grace hasn’t bothered to look in on the Hall in five years.”
“She’s getting older too.” Elf shifted the pillow at his back, having completed his half of the usual exchange. Sometimes Elf took on the part of the grumbler and left Treegum the role of philosopher.
The rocking chairs that sat in a semi-circle around the wide hearth had shown up two years ago, doubtless a gift from His Grace.
“Our duke is trying to do his best,” Treegum observed. “Miss Sarah informs me he writes to Her Grace every month without fail.” Such a pretty hand she had, and she wasn’t too proud to drop an occasional note to an old friend either.
“His Grace and Her Grace try hard, and we manage.”
“But I never expected to be managing for years on end.”
Elf took a long swallow of ale. “I didn’t expect to live this long.”
“Exactly my point. I almost wish Lady Althea’s hogs would come calling regularly. That livened things up a bit.” Those wayward sows had livened up the duke himself—even Treegum thought of him as the duke now—and His Grace was becoming a positively grim fellow.
“Lady Althea has trouble written all over her, Treegum. She’s not a woman to do as she’s told.”
“Then maybe some trouble is what we need. We tend to our tasks, we keep our mouths shut, Master Robbie reads away the winter and gardens through the summers, but without an heir, what’s to become of the Hall?”
The fire was dying and the night air brisk, so Treegum added half a bucket of coal to the flames. In some households, the coal was tightly rationed, but not at Rothhaven Hall. The dukedom was in excellent financial health, even aside from the investments Master Robbie found so diverting. Without expensive Seasons in London, lavish dinner parties, or the usual vanities expected of a ducal home—flaming torches to light the drive, extensive landscaped grounds, floral displays to enhance the main façade—expenses were modest.
Then too, the staff was small and getting smaller.
“Something has to change, Elf, and soon. We can all dodder into our graves, but those lads deserve more than a house haunted by lies and arrogance.” Treegum and Elf had both served under the previous duke and, as youths, under his un-lamented father. Hard, proud men who had wanted hard, proud sons.
Idiots.
“I can still recall the last duke,” Elf said, “shouting at the boy when the poor mite was shaking himself half to death. Calling him names and ordering him to get up.”
“He’s not had a shaking fit for some time.” That they knew of. Master Robbie kept to his rooms for much of the day reading newspapers, or he puttered alone in his walled garden.
“So you’d see them ruined?” Elf asked. “Master Robbie sent back to a madhouse, His Grace in the dock? A pack of vultures would likely take over running the Hall, and that would kill the duchess, that would. Kill me too.”
“His Grace has seen his mama well set up. She’d manage.” The duchess rarely even sent a letter to the Hall anymore.
The conversation usually wandered on to a discussion of changes that might help the situation at the Hall. Another trip into York for His Grace. Maybe a pretty maid or two hired from the village. Sensible women, not too young but not too plain either. Ladies who could lift a man’s spirits, so to speak, and whose loyalty would be to the Hall. Even hiring a true cook might have had some positive effect, not that the present kitchen tyrant showed signs of retiring or that hiring anybody would sit well with the duke.